Webbing rolls are wound rolls of film, sheet or other material that for the purposes of this invention must be shipped from a point of manufacture to an end user at a distant destination. The webbing material can be paper, plastic film, yarn or the like. No matter what type of material is shipped, there have been recurring problems with damage to the webbing material during transit. The damage is often encountered during shipment by common carrier. Moreover, existing systems for packaging of webbing rolls can utilize excessive amounts of packaging materials and, therefore, be expensive to manufacture.
An example of a system for packaging webbing rolls is proposed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,551,563 to Allen. The system includes a support base, a lid, and a plurality of generally cylindrical objects captured between the support base and the lid. The support base includes a bottom wall and four side walls extending upward from the bottom wall. The side walls intersect at four rounded corners. The lid has essentially the same structure as the support base, but is inverted relative to the base.
Although this system reduces the amount of packaging materials by eliminating divider walls between the cylindrical objects, the system still requires vertically-extended corners or corner protectors extending between corresponding corners of the support base and the lid. The extended corners or corner protectors are additional packaging materials that increase the cost of manufacturing the system. The system proposed by Allen also includes a retaining strap extending around the support base, the plurality of cylindrical objects, and the lid to purportedly maintain the integrity of the system during movement thereof. Although such a retaining strap likely provides some measure of integrity for the system, the measure of integrity could still be improved.